


Center

by monicasnothelpful



Series: Introspective Shadowhunters Rambles [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Gen, Growing Up, Growing Up Together, M/M, Other, Parabatai, Parabatai Bond, Parabatai Feels, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-08-21 07:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16572326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monicasnothelpful/pseuds/monicasnothelpful
Summary: Throughout heartbreak, war, puberty, and almost-apocalypses, Jace and Alec find their centers in each other.A story about the growing pains that come with attaching someone to your soul in your teens.





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> this is a drabble bc im always in my parabatai feels. when i get in my parabatai feels again, i'll add more chapters to this.
> 
> un-beta'd.

After the ceremony, things were...weird. Alec and Jace could both feel their newly forged bond surging between them, something between a steady pulse and a tether that kept pulling them towards each other.

Jace had always been a flight risk, but now he felt weighed down by the new bond. He didn’t feel trapped, but... grounded, like Alec was his anchor.

Alec watched Jace strutting around the reception hall like the anxious little show-bird he was, tracking his brother’s movements out of habit, but now Alec could feel the tether holding Jace to him and knew that there was nowhere Jace could fly that Alec wouldn’t be able to reach him. _Not anymore._

Alec was looking around for Max when suddenly he was at Jace’s side, or, rather, Jace was at his? Alec wasn’t sure who had moved, but Jace, who had been regaling Aline Penhallow with (no doubt exaggerated) stories of his missions, was now standing beside Alec, close enough to feel the heat of his body. Alec felt like he could count Jace’s heartbeats if he reached out in the bond.

“What happened?” Alec asked, amused. “Aline get tired of listening to your lies?”

“Hey!” Jace huffed, cracking a smile. “I am not a liar!” He hid his smile in Alec’s shoulder and leaned against him so he was pressed against Alec’s side.

 Alec stood very still, wary of scaring Jace off.

Jace had seemed touched starved when the Lightwoods first adopted him, but too afraid to ask for it. That first night, when then-eleven-year-old Alec and nine-year-old Izzy had started to patch his wounds, he had seemed alarmed by either of them even holding him still so they could take a look. And yet, he had leaned into Maryse’s arms when she and Robert found them.

It took several months living in the Institute for him to ask why they were always touching him: a guiding hand on his shoulder or his arm from Alec, baby Max grabbing onto his legs whenever Jace walked too close, even little Izzy, who had been suspicious of the new addition to their family would launch her tiny but dense body at him whenever she could catch him off guard.

_Izzy, being nine, had been offended. “What do you mean!? We’re your family now, dummy! Of course, we-”_

_Alec had held a hand out to stop her and she huffed, rolling her big brown eyes up at him. “What Izzy means,” Alec had tried, gentler, “is that in our family, we grew up touching each other all the time. Just, for training or for fun and for comfort. But,” He directed these words at the top of Izzy’s shiny black head. She was resolutely staring at Jace with her little arms crossed. “If you’re uncomfortable with any of that, aside from training, we can totally stop.”_

_Izzy huffed again. Alec resisted the urge to flick her on the back of the head._ Sisters.

_Jace had grinned at her and admitted shyly, “No it’s fine, I-” he looked up at Alec. “It just… seemed a bit weird to me. That’s not how my father was, so. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just you coddling me, or something, since I’m the weird orphan kid your parents had to take in. I’m not weak.”_

_Alec raised his eyebrows in shock. Izzy beat him to it, her head flipping up to look at Alec like,_ you hear this??

_She turned to Jace. “Nobody thinks you’re weak, Jace.” She paused, then said decisively. “You’re a Lightwood now. And Lightwoods are not weak.”_

_Max started crying, then, and she strode away in the direction of the nursery, the heels of her jelly sandals lighting up in the dark corridor._

It had been years since then, but Alec was always still a little weary of making Jace feel like Alec was coddling him, or worse: having Jace realize that the way Alec wanted to touch him was very different than the way Alec touched his sister.

Alec shook the thought from his head and let his cheek rest against the top of Jace’s head for a moment, where Jace was still leaning against him. Alec had only recently gotten tall enough for Jace to have to look up to speak to him and it was weird, but it made it easier when Alec leaned away long enough to put his arm around Jace’s shoulder instead, still letting Jace press as close to his side as he wished. Jace’s arm came up around Alec’s waist automatically.

It was nice, feeling the warmth of his parabatai against him, the steadiness of his breathing easing whatever anxiety Alec might have normally felt at a gathering this large. Their parabatai ceremony had taken place at the Hall of Accords in Alicante, and many people had come from the city to witness it. Robert and Maryse were weaving in and out of the crowd of adults, ever the politicians, while nephilim children ran around in circles in some kind of game that Max seemed to be engaged in. Izzy was standing with Aline Penhallow and some other girls, although Alec noticed that Izzy seemed to be leaning heavily into Aline.

“Wanna sneak out to train so we can test this new warrior bond?” Alec asked, keeping his face neutral and his eyes on his family. Robert and Maryse were turned away from them now.

Jace looked up at him with a grin that took over his entire face, gold and shining. “I thought you’d never ask, _parabatai.”_

 


	2. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Lightwood siblings fluff because 3B is stressful.

At first, Alec couldn’t tell what woke him. His heart was racing, but he didn’t remember dreaming. His fingers twitched for his stele, to activate his fighting runes, but where was the fight?

He rubbed his shoulder and started. His parabatai rune was hot and tender to the touch.

Jace.

His bare feet hit the floor before he even decided to get up.

He ran into the hallway, not waiting for his eyes to adjust, too panicked to find his stele to draw a night vision rune.

Just outside Jace’s door, he ran into a solid mass, and they both tumbled to the floor.

It was Jace, sweating and shirtless, his legs tangled with Alec’s on the cold tiled floor of the Institute.

“Are you okay?” Alec asked, his hands flitting over his parabatai to check for damage. Jace’s golden eyes were full of unshed tears.

“S-sorry, I shouldn’t have- I should,” Jace choked out several aborted sentences and then huffed, shaking his head and looking at their feet. “You should go back to bed,” he said, even as his fingers curled around the fabric of Alec’s sleepshirt. His other hand was absentmindedly tracing Alec’s parabatai rune. Alec’s own hand had found Jace’s parabatai rune unconsciously. The physical contact helped steady the bond, and Alec’s was no longer red and inflamed, as it had been when he woke up.

Jace was still breathing far too heavily for alec’s liking. Alec remembered something that his mother had told him and Izzy once, when they first learned about parabatai bonds, more of a fairytale than a reality to them at that point in their lives. Maryse sat by Alec and Izzy’s toddler beds and told them about the first parabatai, David and Jonathan, and how they had calmed each other after battles.

“The two warriors would press their foreheads together,” Maryse said, smiling as Izzy almost smacked Alec in the head in her haste to demonstrate. Alec steadied Izzy’s head against his own and laughed as she put her little nose to his in a butterfly kiss. “They’d look each other in the eyes and press their hands to each other’s rune, letting the bond flow open between them, energy, emotional and physical, running freely between the two of them until they were both okay.  
“To be parabatai is to share in all things: love and loss, anger and joy, sickness and health, injuries, battles, triumphs, failures. This is what it means to bind two souls.”

Alec laid his hand flat on Jace’s rune and used his other hand to flatten Jace’s palm against the matching rune on his shoulder.

“Look at me,” Alec whispered, and Jace did, watery gold eyes flicking up to meet deep blue. Both of them gasped as they felt the bond open between them. Jace’s feelings were a whirlwind of shame, guilt, sadness, and fear as they flowed into Alec, his heartbeat loud and fast and jarring where Alec could suddenly feel it pounding in his own chest. Alec breathed slowly and tried his best to send back love, safety, and contentment.

After an indiscernible amount of time, Alec could feel both of their emotions and heart rates balancing out, the way an hourglass turned on its side would eventually have the same amount of sand in each side.

“C’mon,” Alec tugged on Jace’s hand, pulling him in the direction of Alec’s room. “I don’t sleep well on my own.” It was the truth, in the year since Izzy had decided that she was a big girl who needed her own bedroom, Alec had taken to walking laps in the night between Max’s nursery and Izzy’s bedroom, just to pop his head in and make sure they were both okay.

Jace nodded and the pair of brothers peaked their head into Izzy’s room to see her snoring quietly, midnight hair spread like a fan on the pillow above her head. They peaked into Max’s room next and found him sleeping soundly, his little thumb in his mouth, an old habit that Maryse and Robert couldn’t get him to stop. Alec secretly hoped the habit stayed, as it reminded him of when his baby brother was just that: a baby, not a walking, talking, tiny person.

Alec’s room was at the end of the hall, and the pair turned silently into it. Alec was suddenly thankful that Robert had insisted on upgrading his bed to a full size when they’d moved Izzy’s twin bed out. He doubted Jace would want to squeeze both of them on his old twin bed.

In the morning, it seemed Alec’s concerns about space were for naught, because he woke with Jace’s face pressed into his neck and Izzy somehow smooshed into the space between he and his parabatai. Max was sleeping on Alec’s other side, closest to the wall, which meant their parents must’ve returned for Idris in the night. He sighed, tightening his arm around Jace until he could run his calloused archer’s fingers through his baby sister’s hair. Max sniffled in his sleep and tightened his chubby fist on Alec’s collar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Lightwoods made Jace incredibly comfortable with physical touch and you can't convince me otherwise.


End file.
